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Family Guy History
Family Guy History is the entire series of events, relating to Family Guy, throughout time. This article records the entire history of the show, both in real life, and in-universe. 1970's 1973 *October 26th - Seth MacFarlane is born. 1990's 1995 *July 26th - Seth MacFarlane creates "The Life of Larry", a short pilot series that would later move on to becoming the show we all know and love today as Family Guy. 1997 *February 5th - "Larry and Steve" airs on Cartoon Network's "What a Cartoon" programming block. 1999 *January 31st - Family Guy makes it's world premiere on FOX, immediately succeeding Superbowl XXXIII with the episode "Death Has a Shadow". American audiences are introduced to Peter, Lois, Chris, Meg, Stewie, and Brian of the dysfunctional, nuclear, suburban family, The Griffins and their wacky, zany lives in the town of Quahog, Rhode Island. **Other iconic characters include Glenn Quagmire and Cleveland Brown. *February 21st - "Do and Die" airs. Adam West becomes the mayor of Quahog, after the previous mayor steps down from his position. *February 28th - "A Hero Sits Next Door" airs. In it, The Swanson Family, (Joe, Bonnie, Kevin, and the currently fetal Susie) move in next door to The Griffin Family. *May 16th - "Brian in Love" airs and it's learned that Brian is in love with Lois. *May 23rd - "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" airs. It's Stewie's first birthday and his character officially becomes one year old. *May 30th - The Season 1 finale, "Da Boom" airs, satirizing the real-life onslaught of the turn of the new millennium and conspiracy theories about Y-2K. **This episode also features the show's first ever chicken fight, between Peter Griffin and Ernie the Giant Chicken, a running gag that would happen once every season and become really popular. *September 12th - Season 2 premieres with the episode "Road to Rhode Island", the first "Road to" episode of the series. *December 26th - "The Kiss Seen Around the World" airs, being the last episode of Family Guy to air in the 1990's as well as the 2nd millennium. 2000's 2000 *January 2nd - "Love is in the Air" airs, being the first episode of Family Guy to air in the 3rd millennium, officially making Family Guy an "intermillennial series". *January 8th - "Neighbor Pains" airs. In it, convicted pedophile, John Herbert, more commonly known as "Herbert the Pervert, and his pet dog, Jesse move into Spooner Street, next door to The Swansons and Herbert falls in love with Chris. *March 5th - The Season 2 finale, "There's Something About Paulie" airs. *September 24th - Season 3 premieres with the episode "The Thin White Line", part one of a two-part special. *October 1st - "Brian Does Hollywood" airs as part two of the special. *November 26th - "Mr. Saturday Knight" airs. In it, Peter's boss of the past three seasons, Mr. Weed dies and the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory is shut down, forever, leaving Peter out of a job. *December 3rd - "A Fish Out of Water" Peter finds work as a fisherman, and owns his own boat, which he calls The S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk Put Together. *December 24th - Family Guy's first ever Christmas special, "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas" airs, just a day before the holiday. 2001 *February 18th - The Season 3 finale, "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1" airs, being the first installment of the show's occasional "Viewer Mail" episodes. *September 9th - Family Guy is cancelled, as announced by the network, making what would have been the premiere of Season 4, go to The X-Files. *September 10th - Out of depression over his show getting cancelled, Seth MacFarlane gets really drunk one night and passes out. *September 11th - Seth MacFarlane is scheduled to board Flight 11 at 8:00, to go to Los Angeles. However, after passing out the night before, he experiences a hangover and misses said flight. This flight ended up being the first of the two planes to crash into The Twin Towers, killing everyone on board. This is considered by some to be a "blessing in disguise", as Seth MacFarlane narrowly escaped 9/11, something that would kill him and cut short the legacy he was about to leave with Family Guy. 2002 *Due to a massive increase in rerun ratings on Adult Swim, and a massive cult following from fans. FOX decides to revive Family Guy, and announce it's return, which is planned to happen next year. 2003 *August 31st - Season 4 premieres with the episode "North by North Quahog", officially bringing Family Guy back from the dead. *October 12th - "The Cleveland Loretta Quagmire" airs. Cleveland's wife, Loretta has an affair with Quagmire and later dumps Cleveland, leaving behind their house and their son, Cleveland Junior. *November 16th - "The Perfect Castaway" airs. The S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk Put Together is destroyed in a shipwreck, putting Peter out of a job, once again. *November 30th - "Jungle Love" airs. Peter finds employment at the Pawtucket Brewery, working as a brewer of his favorite beer, Pawtucket Patriot Ale. We are introduced to Peter's stern, anhedonic new boss, Angela, as well as Peter's braindead, nonsense-speaking co-worker Opie. 2004 *February 1st - "Full Metal Jackass" airs. In it, Kevin Swanson is drafted to Iraq. *February 15th - "Stewie B. Goode" airs as part one of a three part special, titled "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story", all of which would close off the show's fourth season. *February 22nd - "Bango Was His Name-Oh!" airs as part two of The Untold Story. *February 29th - The Season 4 finale, "Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure" airs, serving as the third and final part of The Untold Story. **This episode is also serves the series' 88th episode, putting Family Guy into syndication. 2005 *Family Guy is superfluously cancelled a second time. In an instance of history repeating itself, the show's cult following is outraged and the massive ratings of the syndicated repeats, lead to FOX scheduling it's return, the following year. This time, for good. **During the show's second cancellation, Seth MacFarlane uses this time to get his then pending second creation, American Dad!, green lit by FOX. It premiered on February 6th, 2005, with the eponymous episode, "American Dad!". 2006 *September 10th - Season 5 premieres with the episode "Stewie Loves Lois", reviving Family Guy once again, and this time, permanently. *September 17th - "Whistle While Your Wife Works" airs. In it, Brian starts dating Jillian Russel-Wilcox, a dumb blond girlfriend, who he clearly only cares about for her stunning good looks. *October 15th - Frank Sinatra Jr. makes his first appearance, guest voice acting as himself in "Brian Sings and Swings". This would be the first of multiple appearances in the show. In the episode, Frank Sinatra Jr. stops by Quahog and sings his beautiful music. Brian decides to get up on stage and join him and he becomes good friends with him. Later on, Stewie joins the band too and they sing some silly songs together. *December 3rd - "The Family Guy 100th Episode Special" airs, celebrating the show's centennial milestone. 2007 *February 25th - The season five finale, "Untitled Griffin Family History" airs. *September 16th - Season 6 premieres with the episode "McStroke". *October 3rd - The Bourne Company files a lawsuit against Family Guy, over the 2004 episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein". In said episode, Peter sings a song called "I Need a Jew", which was a parody of the song "When You Wish Upon a Star", that had the exact same melody. Apparently, that song wasn't in the public domain and The Bourne Company owned the rights to it. When they did, the episode was temporarily removed from syndication. *November 25th - "Ocean's Three and a Half" airs. In it, after being pregnant for 6 years, Bonnie finally gives birth to Susie Swanson, bringing a new member into The Swanson Family and a new neighbor to Spooner Street. *December 9th - "Stew-Roids" airs. In it, Peter questions Kevin's long absence, since "Full Metal Jackass" and Joe says that Kevin had recently died in Iraq. *December 16th - "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)" airs. In it, Jillian dumps Brian, ending their relationship of two years. 2008 *January 27th - Family Guy's first Star Wars parody, "Blue Harvest" airs. *March 30th - "Stewie Kills Lois" airs as part one of a two part special, closing off the show's 6th season. As the title ever so discretely hints at, Stewie finally puts his money where his mouth is and kills Lois, as he's been attempting and failing at doing so. *April 6th - The Season 6 finale, "Lois Kills Stewie" airs as part two of the the special. Directly continuing, the events of the previous episode, Lois returns from the dead to get revenge on Stewie, but during the three months of her going into hiding, Stewie has assassinated The President and seized control of the country. Later on, Lois fights back and kills Stewie, saving the world. It was revealed in the end, that this whole series of events was just a simulation, projected by Stewie's virtual reality headset, to see what would happen if he really did kill Lois. *September 7th - Season 7 premieres with the episode "Road to the Multiverse". **The Cleveland Show is spun-off from Family Guy, premiering it's first episode, "Cleveland Moves In", immediately succeeding the aforementioned Family Guy episode. 2009 *January 31st - Family Guy's 10th anniversary. *March 1st - The season 7 finale, "The Splendid Source" airs. **This would be the last Family Guy episode to be formatted in standard-definition. *March 17th - The Bourne Company's lawsuit over "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" from 2005 drew to a close, when The U.S. District claimed that Family Guy had modified the lyrics enough to evade copyright infringement. Since then, the episode has returned to broadcast syndication. *August 30th - Season 8 premieres with the episode "And Then There Were Fewer". **This would be the first Family Guy episode to be formatted in high-definition. *October 25th - Family Guy's first ever Halloween special, "Halloween on Spooner Street" airs. **''American Dad!'' and The Cleveland Show would also premiere their first Halloween specials on the same night, these being "The Best Little Horror House in Langley Falls" and "It's the Great Pancake, Junior Brown", respectively. *November 22nd - Family Guy's first ever Thanksgiving special, "Thanks But No Thanksgiving" airs. **''American Dad!'' and The Cleveland Show would also premiere Thanksgiving specials on the same night. For American Dad!, this would also be their first, whereas The Cleveland Show would be airing their second Thanksgiving special. American Dad! and The Cleveland Show's Thanksgiving specials were "There Will Be Bad Blood" and "Another Bad Thanksgiving", respectively. *December 20th - Family Guy's second Christmas special, "Holly Jolly Folly" airs. **''American Dad!'' and The Cleveland Show would also premiere Christmas specials on the same night, these being "For Whom The Sleigh Bell Tolls" and "Murray Christmas", respectively. *December 27th - "Save the Clam" airs, being the last Family Guy episode to air in the 2000's. In it, Horace dies, after getting clonked on the forehead by a baseball, pitched by Jerome, which kills him. Afterwards, Jerome feels guilty about what he did, so he takes over The Drunken Clam for hismelf. 2010's 2010 *January 3rd - "Peter Gets Served" airs, being the first Family Guy episode to air in the 2010's. *February 21st - The season 8 finale, "It's a Trap!" airs, also serving as the third and final installment of the show's Star Wars parodies. *August 15th - It's FOX's "Night of the Hurricane", a three-part cross through, where all three of Seth MacFarlane's TV shows get affected by the same hurricane on their respective season premieres. Part two of the cross through is Family Guy's Season 9 premiere, with "Seahorse Seashell Party". **This succeeds The Cleveland Show's third season premiere, "The Hurricane" and precedes American Dad's seventh season premiere, "Flozelle's Final Fight". The latter of which features an ending credits gag, wherein the homes of all three families crashing together in a pile of rubble, and for the main characters, Peter, Stan, and Cleveland to come out and have a funny little crossover conversation. *September 19th - Family Guy celebrates it's 200th episode milestone, with the episode entitled "200 Episodes Later". *November 28th - Family Guy's second Thanksgiving episode "Thanksgiving With The Griffins" airs, on the very day of the holiday. In it, Kevin makes a shocking return to Quahog, revealing that he faked his own aforementioned death, to escape the war. Joe instinctively tries to arrest him for the illegality of this action, but Kevin appeals to his humanity, so Joe lets him go. Since then, Kevin moves back into his house, a changed man, now a shell-shocked veteran from Iraq. 2011 *February 6th - The Season 9 finale, "Family Guy Viewer Mail #2" airs, being the second installment of the show's Viewer Mail episodes, since the season 3 finale, "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1". *September 11th - Season 10 premieres with the episode "Back to the Pilot", which does a throwback to the first episode of Family Guy, "Death Has a Shadow", wherein Stewie and Brian time travel back to the events of the day the pilot episode took place. **This episode also aired exactly one decade after 9/11 and it's plot heavily featured and made fun of The September 11th attacks, making for an extremely controversial and extremely-er funny episode on the real world's 10th annual, 9/11 remembrance day. *December 11th - "Road to the North Pole" airs, serving as Family Guy's third Christmas special and sixth "Road To" episode. 2012 *January 15th - Family Guy's first ever Valentine's Day special, "Valentine's Day in Quahog" airs. *March 4th - The Season 10 finale, "Yug Ylimaf" airs. In it, Brian fucks up Stewie's time machine, so he can impress girls with it and permanently puts time in reverse. All of the events of the entire Family Guy series are entirely undone, beyond the events of "Death Has a Shadow". Brian finally manages to set things straight again, on the date of September 11th, 1998, just seconds after Stewie is put back into his womb. After being "reborn", the past 10 years play out all over again, the same way they did in the series and Stewie and Brian have to pretend they don't know about it for all that time. Either that or Stewie simply used his time machine to go to the future, fixing everything up again. *April 17th - It's announced that The Cleveland Show has been cancelled. *September 9th - Season 11 premieres with the episode "Life of Brian". In it, Brian is killed off the show after an unidentified reckless driver, runs him over. Following his death, he is replaced with a new pet dog named Vinny Filipeli. At this time, Stewie had just destroyed his time machine, believing it to be too much trouble, so he was never able to bring Brian back. *December 16th - The Cleveland Show airs it's full hour series finale, "Cleveland Moves Out", segwaying into the return of Cleveland and his family to Family Guy in the latter show's next episode the following week. **Like how Family Guy's "Da Boom" made fun of the Y-2K apocalypse conspiracies, the series finale of The Cleveland Show made fun of the 2012 apocalypse conspiracies, by giving the finale a dose of an apocalypse-themed plotline, signifying the end of the series. This all happened five days before December 21st, 2012, the day the Mayan calendar ended. *December 23rd - "He's Bla-ack!" airs, marking the return of Cleveland to Family Guy. As such, Cleveland rejoins the cast and assumes his original position as a beer bar buddy and across the street neighbor of The Griffins, along with Junior. Additionally, Donna, Roberta, Rallo, and Rock Hudson join the show's supporting cast, allowing for some The Cleveland Show's legacy to keep itself alive and running. 2013 *March 3rd - The Season 11 finale, "Christmas Guy" airs. In it, Stewie comes across his past self, from the events of "Life of Brian", who reminds him that just before destroying his time machine, he used it one last time to go to the future and buy a toy as soon as it hits the market. Stewie begs him for the return pad and Stewie lets him borrow it, so he can save Brian's life. Stewie goes back in time to the events of the episode "Life of Brian", to stop Brian from dying. Afterwards, the entire storyline, involving Vinny is erased from the in-universe timeline and Brian returns to the main cast again. *July 21st - Season 12 premieres with the episode "Candy Quahog Marshmallow!". 2014 *January 13th - The Season 12 finale and 300th episode special, "Inside Family Guy" airs. *September 7th - Season 13 premieres with the episode "The Simpsons Guy", a full length crossover episode with FOX's world famous, critically acclaimed, animated sit-com The Simpsons. 2015 *January 31st - The Season 13 finale, "A Lot Going on Upstairs" airs. *September 20th - Season 14 premieres with the episode "The Boys in the Band". 2016 *February 14th - The Season 14 finale, "A House Full of Peters" airs. *September 4th - Season 15 premieres with the episode "Emmy-Winning Episode". *December 25th - Family Guy's eighth Christmas special, "Don't Be a Dickens at Christmas" premieres on Christmas day. *December 27th - Carrie Fisher passes away, due to cardiac arrest, putting an end to her character of Angela on the show. Fortunately, she had already finished voice acting for the next coming Season 16, so Angela was still fully prominent in the next season. **The episode "Maid in China", aired on January 3rd, included a memoriam tagline to her at the end. 2017 *February 12th - The Season 15 Finale, and third installment of the Viewer Mail episodes, "Family Guy Viewer Mail 3" airs. *June 9th - Adam West passes away from leukemia, putting an end to his character of Mayor Adam West. Fortunately, he had already completed all of his voice acting for the next coming season, so his character was fully prominent in the next season. **The Season 16 premiere "Don't Trust the D___ in Apartment 23" gave him an "In Memoriam" tagline. *September 10th - Season 16 Premieres with the episode "Don't Trust the D in Apartment 23". **Brian gets evicted from The Griffin House and is forced to live in a crappy old apartment for a story arc that lasts half the season. *December 25th - "Brian Come Home for Christmas" airs. In this episode. Brian finally returns home for Christmas. **This would be the second Christmas special to air on Christmas day, since last season's "Don't Be a Dickens at Christmas". **This episode is also notable for being the first episode of the series not to premiere on Sunday, but rather, Monday. *December 31st - The year goes out with a bang with the premiere of "Send in Stewie, Please", a full hour long special episode, that was broadcast without any commercial interruptions. In this episode, Stewie goes to a psychologist, Dr. Cecil Pirtchfield and we get a deep, psychological look into Stewie's mind and heart. 2018 *April 1st - The Season 16 Finale, "Family Guy Through the Years" airs, marking the show's 400th episode. In it, Peter gives us a historical look back at Family Guy, providing us with a clip show of some of the series' greatest moments. However, the stories he tells are fictional and comical, as he claims the show dates back as far as the 1950's and the "clips" of "previous episodes" are actually new material, exhibiting parodic "alternate versions" of the show, in different time periods. **Some consider this episode to be an April Fool's joke, given it's timing. *October 14th - Season 17 premieres with the episode "Married ... With Cancer", part of a two-part special, as well as the beginning of a story arc, wherein Brian dates a girl named Jess, who's been diagnosed with terminal cancer. While dating, Jess is revealed to only have a month left to live, which breaks her heart, as she now knows she'll never get married. Brian promises to marry her as soon as possible, whereas to make her last few days on Earth, truly fulfilling to all her needs. Instantly after they officially wed, Jess' doctor comes in with surprising news, revealing that she managed to beat the cancer and will now live a full life. This puts Brian into a state of shock, as he was only marrying Jess to make himself look good and now he's stuck with this annoying woman for the rest of his life. *October 21st - "The Five Day Marriage" airs as part two of the special. In it, Brian's marriage to Jess forces him to move out of The Griffin House, so they can live in the same apartment from last season's "Brian Moves Out" story arc. Brian's marriage to Jess gradually gets worse and worse. *October 28th - "Dead Dog Walking" airs as the end of the Brian and Jess story arc. In it, Jess spontaneously dies after the commercial break, abruptly killing her off for good. *November 4th - "Pawtucket Pete" airs. The episode begins with Peter giving a eulogy to Angela, whereas to officially write off her character in light of her voice actor's death. Afterwards, the series introduces Bert and Sheila, a black and white interracial couple, who become the two new bosses of Pawtucket Brewery. 2019 *January 31st - Family Guy's 20th anniversary. *March 20th - The Walt Disney Company purchases acquisition of 21st Century FOX for $71.3 billion, officially turning Family Guy into a Disney production. *May 27th - "Adam West High airs. In it, the death of Mayor Adam West's voice actor, Adam West is honored and acknowledged in-universe. Additionally, James Woods Regional High School is renamed "Adam West High". *June 30th - "Hefty Shades of Gray" airs as part one of a two part special, closing off the show's 17th season. *April 7th - The Season 17 finale, "Trump Guy" airs as part two of the special. *September, 22nd - Season 18 is premieres with the episode "Disney's the Reboot". *October, 27th - Family Guy's sixth Halloween special, "The Sound of Violence" airs. *November 24th - Family Guy's fifth Thanksgiving special, "Shanksgiving" airs. *December, 29th - Family Guy's ninth Christmas special, "Christmas is Coming" airs, being the last episode to air in the 2010's. 2020's 2020 *January, 5th - "No Giggity, No Doubt" airs, being the first episode to air in the 2020's. At this time, Family Guy's run time officially spans 22 years, 4 decades, and 2 millenniums. Future Events Later in 2020 *February 9th - Family Guy's third Valentine's Day special, "Heart Burn" airs. *March, 8th - Season 18 ends with the episode "Peter & Lois' Wedding". *Season 19 is expected to air sometime in September of this year. 2021 *Season 19 is expected to end sometime in February of this year. Unspecified Dates *It's been teased and hinted many times that Family Guy will have a full-length movie, which will get a theatrical release. Very little information exists on this, and even less information backs up it's legitimacy, so to this day, it's still unknown when or if this will ever happen. See Also *Family Guy *List of Episodes *Awards & Nominations Category:Lists